12 Castle Street, Glenarm, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0AT

12 Castle Street is a plain, two-storey, rendered, double-fronted terraced house of possible pre-1832 construction, situated on the south side of Castle Street in Glenarm, with its front elevation facing north.

The front elevation is almost symmetrical. At its centre is a plain sheeted door with a five-pane rectangular fanlight. To either side of the door is a six-over-six sash window, and at first-floor level there are three further similar but slightly shorter windows. The far left corner is framed with plain quoins. The façade is finished in roughcast render. The gabled roof is slated, with a yellow brick chimney stack to the west and a rendered stack to the east. Cast iron rainwater goods serve the north elevation and PVC rainwater goods the south.

The rear south elevation has been significantly altered: all doors and windows here are modern, the central door is flanked by enlarged window openings, and three evenly spaced windows occupy the first floor.

Although the front elevation retains its original architectural character, the extent of alteration and modernisation elsewhere means that listed status could not be justified, and the building was removed from the statutory list in March 2006.

This house is likely to be the dwelling of matching dimensions recorded in the 1859 valuation notebook for Glenarm village. At that date the property was in the hands of a Charles Conolly but occupied by lodgers. The notebook gives no indication of the building's age at that point, though its style suggests construction before 1832.

Castle Street is the shortest of Glenarm's four principal original streets, running westwards from the junction of Toberwine and Altmore Streets to the bridge over the Glenarm River, with Lower Castle Street branching southwards near its western end. The street was formerly part of the main road from Larne — a route of possible medieval origin — which wound northwards through The Vennel, across the bridge, and on to what is now the Straidkilly Road. The earliest leases in the Antrim Papers relating to plots and buildings along the street date from 1711, though at least one building, the old parish church, stood at the south-western end of the street (on the site now occupied by the former schoolhouse) as early as 1683. The 13th-century Bisset castle, probably a tower-house structure, is reputed to have stood at the north-eastern end of the street; the still-extant former courthouse, believed to have been standing since at least the 1750s, is thought to incorporate part of its ruins. The bridge at the western end was erected in 1682 — prior to which travellers forded the river — but had to be largely rebuilt in 1713 following flood damage. For obvious reasons the street was originally known as Bridge Street, a name that appears to have persisted until the mid-19th century.

On John O'Hara's map of 1779, the earliest surviving plan of Glenarm, the street is shown fully developed on both sides, with rows of properties corresponding to the same extent visible on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832. Evidence from the 1859 valuation suggests that most of the buildings shown in 1832 are those that survive today, with the short terrace in Lower Castle Street having appeared around 1835 to 1840.

O'Hara's map clearly illustrates Castle Street's former pre-eminence as part of the main northward route from Larne, with the road skirting the grounds of Glenarm Castle on the west side of the river. In the early 19th century this arrangement was radically altered: the old road was superseded by the new Coast Road and the new Glenarm Bridge, built in 1813 at the north end of the village, and the castle grounds were enclosed. This process, largely complete by the mid-1820s, appears to have led to a gradual diminution of the street's status. It is perhaps telling that whereas a notable such as Lord Antrim's agent could be found living in Castle Street in the late 18th century, by the mid-1830s the agent had moved to the south end of the newly widened — and consequently much grander — Altmore Street.

The property lies within a conservation area.